[SSLP] Remember 11: The Age of Infinity

The prologue is a lot longer than I remembered... oof. Later, meaningful, choices will mean I can make each update shorter, but I might have to split the prologue into two posts.



Feel free to leave some comments, I wanna gauge interest and junk.


Heaven is Here




And with the first scene, Heaven is Here over, I think I should leave it there for now. Trust me, this game gets good, especially once I'll get y'all to do the choices.

First Choices:


And here, finally we have the first choice of the game! Respond with what choice of action you'd prefer!

Alrighty then! I might just do choices on a "first come, first serve" basis, since I'm hyped to be doing these. Feel free to say if you'd prefer another system.



Surpriiiiise! Some gaps between choices are pretty short, leading to short updates. But then, this is a forum filled with interactive stories, so I can't well do the meaningless choices myself now can I?

Remember, first come, first serve on choosing a choice, but feel free to speculate on plot points too, I love that sort of thing.

Downwards is Onward

Also this is my favorite thread to catch up on during my lunch break at work!

I hope she figures out she's switched bodies before long here, I'm very curious to see the reveal and especially to see the mechanics of how this works. The fact that she didn't necessarily recognize that computer as a computer makes me wonder if she's from a slightly earlier timeline. Like, she didn't recognize an All-In-One designed computer. Of course, I could be VERY wrong about why she called it, "...something resembling a computer..."

Okay, after this choice I might start only giving you guys the ones that change variables/matter. It's really killing the pace.

Oh fuck, what if this is like some Shutter Island shit and it turns out there's no real body swapping and Kokoro and Satoru are literally two different personalities? Like, the girl is supposed to suffer from Dissociative Identity Disorder, right?

What if Kokoro does too? What if she's currently in the hospital and this is all an elaborate concoction of her own psyche that's keeping her from facing the reality: that she's the real killer or she's nuts too or both?

OH GOD IF IT TURNS OUT KOKORO HAS D.I.D. THAT MAKES THE FORUM FORMAT FOR THIS GAME THE MOST META WAY TO PLAY THIS POSSIBLE!

I need to group these posts together so it's not just spammin'. I work best in a stream of conciousness.

So...I think we take the indirect approach. I normally advocate being straightforward in 99% of situations, but the phrasing of "Don't play dumb" is really too hostile for a first encounter. Plus, what if my theory of the girl being BodSwap herself when she committed those crimes is correct? We'd be grilling her about choices she could not have made and now has to suffer for.

We need to treat this situation delicately I think. At least for now. Give em the good cop before the bad cop.

FINAL ANSWER:
Ask Indirectly

Oh that was absolute madness! My heart!

Ok so Kokoro reacted WAY more strongly to this news than I anticipated. Granted, it makes sense. I mean...your reflection doesn't match your memory anymore. In EVERY way possible. I doubt I'd react super nonchalantly too and I'm relatively easygoing.

So I gotta wonder if this Sephirot is related to the Kabbalah concept of Sefirot (it's just an alternate spelling of it's pronunciation after all). I can't imagine the Jewish Mysticism equivalent of the Tree of Life is going to cause a bunch of Japanese teenagers to body swap, but it's a thought I may have to explore if we get more details on this Sephirot!

So very obviously this ends with Kokoro returning to her body. Now, for reasons I know we also follow Satoru when he's in her body, so my initial thought is that we're going to go a bit back in the timeline next update to see how things played out on his end during Kokoro's misadventures in the weird "hospital like" room.

Speaking of, that entire exchange with Yuni was breaking my heart! Poor kid looked so lost and afraid, and Kokoro has to see that and be entirely unable to help because he literally CANNOT see her as her right now. How can he be expected to with no concept of what's going on with her and Satoru? Poor kid's got some dude coming up to him and interrogating him like they're old friends before seemingly having a mental breakdown and fainting! He's gotta be startled as hell right now. Now I'm very curious to find out something: he survived. How TF did they survive that crash? Moreover, is he experiencing any difficulties because of it? What if he's having body swap adventures of his own right now? I mean, would he even talk about it if he was? I wouldn't, people would think I'm nuts! So we need to carefully evaluate his behavior over the next few chapters/updates especially, see if he's having his moments too.

Another thing I'm keen to find out is if there's any "bleeding" effect between their memories in each other's bodies. Like, will Kokoro eventually adopt traits more like Satoru's because of either A) experiencing life as him could have lasting effects or B) could it be possible that his brain retains the memories so when they trade back, he'll have access to them if he tries to remember? Like basically, Kokoro in his body creates memories in his physical brain hardware. Now, that's unlikely, but then again, the science behind memory is not very well understood. Like, we know our brains store memories almost as data on a hard drive-certain neurons and synapses fire in HIGHLY specific and details ways to evoke the feeling of images or the memory of emotions (often both to paint a more believable picture in our heads) but the real how, why, and when is not very well mapped yet. We have ideas and conceptualizations, absolutely, but it's big part of mapping the brain and understanding neurochemsitry IRL right now. Will this game play with the concept of the brain as physical storage for memory which can be accessed by whatever consciousness is on it?

I highly doubt it, but could you imagine???

I kind of hope that, despite how much I wanna know what Satoru is up to in Kokoro's body, that we follow K's consciousness in the next update. I'm most excited to see how she in particular handles the switch back, after her initial switch out. It's going to tell us a lot about her character right now, and if this story goes where I'm really hoping, it'll serve as a great point from which we can compare her development and acceptance of her situation later~!

This game is cool AF. This is a weird puzzle that I'm increasingly excited to see more pieces and complexity added too!

[edit: addition @ 3:30am]

Something else I'm very curious about is if we'll see any kind of concept of gender dysphoria in this. Like, when K is in S's body and vice versa, their consciousness doesn't match their physical being. How is that going to effect their mental states going forward? Will they adapt, or will it wear on them? Maybe both? Will this change force them to confront their own stereotypes and preconceptions about masculinity and femininity and perhaps a small detail of their character arc is to maybe learn to accept or understand aspects of themselves that perhaps they identified as bad because of their common association with being traits the opposite sex? I would doubt if it's a thing that it's played for more than a few laughs for a while or for minor character interaction and/or growth, but it's something I think about. I mean, being forced against your will to live in a body that so thoroughly-and in a way that literally cannot be ignored-does not match your self image is something that I can't imagine as being anything short of mental taxing. It'd be a cool chance to see some character growth in addition to playing with the trope of the "Freaky Friday" swap.

Lastly I just can't help but wonder how dark this game is going to get? Like, it's been rather INTENSE in places so far, but I'm curious as to how bleak that intensity could become. I hope not TOO bleak honestly. Those stories are...important, but hard. I will read it either way, but one will be much easier to write quickly about.

TOO PUMPED AGHHHHHHHHHHH!

Ok, real talk, I haven't read a TON of VNs, but that scene of him taking his glasses off casually before jumping into her arms and clinging like she was a life raft? Holy hell that was powerful. I wear glasses so I related to his fear of breaking them in his enthusiasm (I've knocked my own glasses off from hype many times) and wow just...that was really cute and such a nice little moment after all this heaviness.

So yeah, I still hold my theory of their consciousnesses switching not only across space, but time as possible. The things Kali was saying to K in S's body still make me feel as if those events take place later. That's backed up by the idea that Yuni is looking for Kokoro in the Satoru Scene from before, despite literally having this moment with her. So it's possible they were separated.

Another theory arises from this though: What if Yuni was somehow copied? Like, I know this makes VERY little sense for the data we have right now, but is it possible that Yuni exists in both places at once? Perhaps his "Anima" and "Animus" were split somehow? I mean, this Yuni in this most recent post is much more animated and lovely than the other Yuni. That VERY well could be that that version of Yuni was surrounded by strangers and therefore was just a bit on the quieter or more reserved side.

Part of what I believe to be backing this theory up is honestly entirely semantic, but Kokoro mentions that Yuni cried out for her, "...with a voice as lovely as a girl's..." and that phrasing is awkward enough to my ears to potentially count as an instance of foreshadowing. So this Yuni with K-Prime (Kokoro in her own body) could be the Anima, or Jungian Psychology's explanation for the "feminine side" that exists within men. It's a shaky connection, but the possibility exists.

On the whole though...wow I just needed that. Something cuter and happier to balance out the absolute heartache from the previous mental breakdown scene. Also I'm a huge softie and a giant sucker for sappy cuteness! >///<



Moving forward, I actually need to rely on our OP here to make the right call. If "What Yuni had said bothered me." is meant like the conversation from the previous post with K-Two (Kokoro in Satoru's body), then we avoid that. Yuni probably can't remember that conversation as...he likely, but not certainly, wasn't there for it.

So if "What Yuni had said bothered me." pertains to the part about Kokoro saving him, we ask that. If it's otherwise, we ask why he's here.

Hello everyone!

I apologize for the delay in any posts at all, I think I burnt myself out on this game by trying to update too frequently. But now, I'm starting to feel the urge to play this again come back, and I'll start working on updates again! Just... at a more controlled pace. I'm (as you can probably tell) very new to the idea of a screen shot LP, so I'm really working out the kinks in how I'm doing this as I go.

As for how to interact, on choices I think are important enough to leave to y'all, simply reply to the thread on what choice you wish to pick. It's pretty simple.

Anyhow, I'm going to start working on the next update soon, this is more so just an update to... well, basically give myself some motivation for the next update. I hope y'all'll enjoy it!